anyone feel uncomfortable about Military Wives Choir?

i served prior to being demoted to 'wife' status, avantia.

and like norma, i know exactly what my value was in the commodity known as 'wife of'. whatever it says in the dm.

And that is why I don't like the choir's name. I have my own life, career and value. But it reminds me of how we are treated by the powers that be. An add on/inconvenience most of the time

Well I take my prompt from how the military view me.

I could not get much lower than their view of our value

There are not many groups of people who are sent off to a war zone for 6 months with the possibility that they may not come back besides the military - what other groups do a dangerous job - fireman , policeman .

I think you underestimated yourself as a 'military wife '.

x-post. dear god, my mn is slooooooooow today.

quite.

and actually, it can make it even more difficult to seek help if you do need it. the last thing you need when you are feeling completely shit and alone and terrified is for some chump to say 'oooooh, but you're so brave'.

there's nothing wrong with people recognising the circumstance. and recognising that military families have a fair amount of shit to deal with (as do a lot of other families) or that sn families have a lot of shit to deal with. and i'm glad that the funds from this thing (as far as i understand) will be going to ssafa to perhaps alleviate some of the shit. so i guess the use of the term 'military wives' to play into the whole pr driven genre will have a beneficial outcome. even if it does reinforce some of the stereotype.

don't get me wrong, i'm all for smashing steretypes.

Gordon Bennett: this is a load of navel gazing. I am a feminist - was one years before the women of the 1970s thought they were the ones to discover feminism - but, listen up, it's a bloody telly programme, the women chose to take part, they wanted the name it was given and for those pinned down on bases with kids it brought them together as a community and they enjoyed it. Feminism is about choices, yes? Even if they are sometimes ones not everyone approves of?

BTW, did anyone see the final episode where Gareth got a load of soldiers to give the women an impromptu sing-song as a lighter moment. On the front row with the blokes was one female soldier. Perhaps it would have been nice to have had a single male 'wife' in the women's choir . Unlikely at Chivenor being a marine base but it would have been nice to have found one at the Plymouth base.

There is nothing wrong with recognising the extra difficulties. It is nice if people do. But there are other groups of people who also work in difficult and dangerous jobs (as others have pointed out, to say that there is nothing special about military "wives").

What we have to live with is a different set of circumstances. I just wanted to clarify that we do not expect those labels from others :)

People may not describe themselves as brave and courageous but the view is that they are and many of the public hold the families that are left behind in high esteem - what is so wrong with that ?

Too right madwoman.

And I absolutely agree. DH has recently been in a job that was protected from posting to sandy places, but I know he will be in a very hot place later next year, for a couple of months at least.

I will not be being brave, or courageous. Just getting on with the daily shit that life throws at you (and drinking more than the average amount of gin in my case). I don't know of anyone who describes themselves as such because of their partner's job.

all of that brave and courageous bollocks is applied externally though.

just like mother of preemies or kids with sn are deemed 'special'.

i am neither brave nor special, but that wouldn't alter a pr team deciding to label me as such to achieve an objective.

all ordinary women raising their families in a slightly different context (be that sn or whatever) and people not in that position judging and applying labels. nothing to do with self-identification at all.

i assume the 'wives' thing was merely a descriptor in this instance. it isn't one i would choose, but it's hard to shake this stuff off when it's being applied everywhere you go.

and yy, wives are an absolute irrelevance to the military. until they need someone to run a coffee morning or provide an informal support network to keep families afloat so that they don't have to bring anyone back early from ops.

Oh - and I am a feminist

Hmm I think littlestclanger's post "It's all related to the thing of men being brave by doing dangerous things, while female bravery and courage come from sitting patiently while their partner does the dangerous stuff.

DH used to have a ridiculously dangerous job. That did not make me courageous in any way related to that, but no-one would ever suggest that DH was brave for having a partner who handled snarly animals as part of her job."

is pertinent to the "balls" comment.

'feminists who overthink matters'.

Yes, you're right. From now on I shall try my best to always underthink.

Norma, your post is very interesting. It's good to hear your perspective.

God - I have been asked if I am going to join a choir / if I have been asked to join a choir.

I am a military wife.

I earn more, am out of the house longer than DH (ATM), have a career. But none of that exists as far as the military are concerned. I am just his dependent. I can't have an extra bedroom for an au pair as my job is irrelevent (they are moving his job and changing his hours so we will need an au pair). Oh, and they still haven't told us where we will be living (can't afford to rent in this area).

The being a military wife does (usually) kind of define your experience of housing and moving and disruption to your children's education.

And they have that experience mostly in common.

I don't like the name as it reminds me that is how the military actually view me - an irrelevence.

Military Wives - well their husbands or partners that are in the Military - its more than just a name - it is for the most a way of life.

I dont actually care what the Choir was called it was about these women who are often left at home for 6 months keeping it all together not knowing whether their partner was going to be home - or when there was a communication ban was it because it was their partner that was killed .

It brought to attention the families of the Miliatry that are left at home whilst the military personnel mainly get the media attention.

These women shown on the programme and featured in the 'Wives Choir ' have more balls than many feminists who overthink matters.

It's a fact of life that the role of 'military spouse' is usually very much an adjunct to the 'head of the family'. It's visibly out of step with how many other people live their lives now, which has been recognised as an issue, but that's not to say it's "wrong". It's difficult however to find ways that partners of military personnel can themselves have a career when the demands of the military half of the couple are so unpredictable, involve moving around every couple of years, off for six months at a time on one of Her Majesty's Holidays (tm)...

They just happen to mostly be women in this case, which wasn't (initially I think) set up at all to be a TV series with a spin-off single, it was a fly on the wall (ish) reality/documentary. It was a lovely, sweet three part series which grew legs and arms.

I can't see a big feminist issue in this, except to say that I've (formerly) been a woman in the army for a short while, and I still know a lot of women in the forces. The character types they tend to have as partners are not often the SAHP / significantly lesser earner / content with being defined as "husband of...". I also know lots of men in the forces who have wives/partners with "proper" careers themselves, who therefore don't define themselves as 'wife of', either.

I expect that the proportion of military families who rely on a single/main income is probably higher than in society at large, and it would follow that as there are more men in the military those "spouses of..." are largely going to be female, but it is by no means the only way that military families work. I think the group who are entitled to be most narked with the (well-meaning, but fairly one-dimensional) characterisation of the programme/song publicity are military wives with jobs who don't live on a camp, because I bet a few of them are getting asked 'are you going to join if they set one up where you are?', and having to explain it's not compulsory to live in tied housing and take a full part in the military family thing.

aw, don't lure me back in when i'm on my mn holiday.

can't comment at all on the choir or the song, as i haven't heard it, and have only seen it discussed on here.

but i just wanted to point out that some mn feminists are military 'wives'.

the two positions aren't mutually exclusive.

sorry - should have been clearer, it was the DM readers' comments that went along the lines of "should have covered herself from head to toe, that's just not naice"

think the DM stuck with generic "our brave boys and girls" tone.

Yeah, I've read a lot of comments on the DM website (why do I do it to myself?) about her tattoos.

I didn't know she used to be in the military though.

Oooooooooh that's interesting. Must have been a tough one for the DM I imagine their default position is armed forces and their families = jolly good stuff.

SQ actually, having not watched the programme but having seen brief snippets on other shows, the soloist/featured "wife" previously served in the military herself and is heavily tattooed - leading to much daily-mail-disapproval...

Post, I mean.

Ahem, my last thread was in response to meditrina's. In case you thought I'd entirely lost the plot...